Report: Fabricio Werdum will take on Ben Rothwell at UFC 211 in Dallas

Werdum and Rothwell have just been added to the card headlined by heavyweight champ Stipe Miocic and challenger Junior dos Santos

For the last few months the UFC’s heavyweight division has been in a state of disarray. A fight between Fabricio Werdum and Cain Velasquez in December to determine the next challenger for the belt was scrapped at the last minute after Cain went ahead and shared some terrifying sounding health issues with the press.

The UFC tried to make lemons out of lemonade by booking Werdum against Junior dos Santos, which sounded great until it fell through over money concerns from Werdum. But what use is a number one contender fight anyways when champion Stipe Miocic seemed like he was about to become the latest fighter to refuse to compete until his contract was renegotiated?

A whole lot of fighting was going on, but none of it was being done in the cage.

Fortuntely, the UFC has managed to sort things out. With Fabricio turning down a title eliminator fight against Junior, the shot at heavyweight gold will now go to dos Santos by default (despite his inability to string two wins together since 2011). Stipe Miocic’s issues? Either taken care of, or I’m sure we’ll hear a lot more from him leading up to their headlining fight at UFC 211 in Dallas.

And now Brazilian sports outlet Combate is reporting that Fabricio Werdum will be joining them on the card against a resurgent Ben Rothwell, who ran through four of his last five opponents, only losing a decision to dos Santos in April of last year.

It’s a set of bookings MMA fans are sure to love, not just because they guarantee a great night of fights but because it shows the UFC can still get these great match ups signed and sealed. Since the promotion’s $4 billion sale over the summer, it seemed like many of their big names were done accepting anything but the biggest money fight under the most optimal of conditions. That war is far from over, but in this case the fights got made, which is all we really care about in the end.

That’s assuming, of course, that Combate is correct and Fabricio Werdum has actually signed off on the fight…